obesity

When Michelle Obama celebrated the fourth anniversary of "Let's Move," her White House initiative on fitness and healthy eating, she cited a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) showing a remarkable 43 percent drop in obesity rates among children ages 2-5. Mrs. Obama brought up the study again on Friday at a Partnership for a Healthier America’s Building a Healthier Future Summit. But a report by Reuters health & science correspondent Sharon Begley casts doubt on the validity of the results of the study. While Begley concludes that "no one can say for certain that the claim is wrong," the results are so uncertain that "based on the researchers' own data, the obesity rate may have even risen rather than declined."

The problem lies in large measure with the small sample size of the CDC study and its relatively large margin of error. Begley explains:

The 13.9 percent obesity rate among preschoolers reported for 2003-2004 had a large enough margin of error that the actual rate could range between 10.8 percent and 17.6 percent, the CDC authors acknowledged. The 8.4 percent rate in 2011-2012 reported could range from 5.9 percent and 11.6 percent.

Since the range for 2003-2004 overlaps with that of 2011-2012, [epidemiologist Geoffrey Kabat of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City] said, "that's another way of saying there might have been no change" in preschoolers' obesity rate. Even an increase is a statistical possibility.

The study size is not the only problem. Other studies, some with considerably larger sample sizes, have shown significantly smaller decreases; others have shown little change; still others have actually shown obesity increasing. For instance, a study of 200,000 children in the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program "found virtually no change in obesity rates":

Rather than reducing the prevalence of obesity among 3-and-4-year olds in the WIC program in California's Los Angeles County, researchers found that the problem worsened from 2003 to 2011. Obesity rose to 20.4 percent from about 17 percent, the researchers reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in 2013.

In New York, the WIC study found that obesity rates fell to 15.5 percent in 2011 from about 19.5 percent in 2003, a much less dramatic drop than the 40 percent decline.

"We agree there is a slight downward trend in obesity among 2-to-5-year olds," said Shannon Whaley, a co-author of the WIC study. "But a 43 percent drop is absolutely not what we're seeing."

This is not the first time Mrs. Obama has cited statistics in support of Let's Move that turned out to be less than meets the eye. Just last year, on the third anniversary of Let's Move, the first lady's office sent out a press release that appeared to take credit for the recent developments that "national childhood obesity rate has leveled off, and even declined in some cities and states." In particular, the White House highlighted a 13 percent decline in childhood obesity in Mississippi. But as we reported at the time:

[t]he 13 percent decrease that Mrs. Obama touted is measured from Spring 2005 through Spring 2011. “Let's Move” was launched in February 2010, so the first five years of the time period in question were prior to Let's Move's existence.

This week's Reuters report questioning the 43 percent decline suggests one more reason to question the results showing a decline in pre-schooler obesity rates:

First Lady Michelle Obama is continuing her road trip celebrating the 3rd anniversary of her “Let's Move” initiative, appearing on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts on Tuesday and at an event with Rachael Ray on Wednesday. The initial press release last week

Today the White House credited Michelle Obama's three-year-old “Let's Move” initiative with halting and even reversing a thirty year trend of increasing childhood obesity, a trend that has led to what the Centers for Disease Control has called an epidemic.

While most of Washington is waiting around, nervously chewing on its fingernails in anticipation of the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision (may I have the envelope, please), there are some who are still in the fight. As Melissa Healy writes in the Los Angeles Times:

Time to start bootlegging Big Gulps.

Is it possible for New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg to be considered both a fascist and a national laughingstock? We're about to find out:

New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising obesity.

Just 13 years after a famine that wiped out millions of its people and three years after a flood that aggravated frequent food shortages, caused by an authoritarian dictator who doesn't allow citizens to farm or sell food privately and has a history of rejecting international humanitarian aid, the country of North Korea has tackled its obesity problem.

What will they try to ban next?

Did you know that New York City was recently ranked the seventh craziest city in America, based on psychiatrists per capita, stress levels, eccentricity, and alcohol consumption? If one were to judge on its politicians’ ideas, though, the Big Apple would be a shoo-in to receive the “wacko” blue ribbon.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, this loony bin also serves as an incubator for ill-advised trends that eventually go national. Remember the trans fat ban? It got its start in NYC.

Against the fat-acceptance crowd.

Michelle Obama recently kicked up a mild fuss by discussing her children while talking about childhood obesity. Per ABC News, Obama said at an event kicking off her childhood obesity awareness campaign: "I didn't see the changes. And that's also part of the problem, or part of the challenge.